Reed Ranch- Cute & Tasty

Turkeys at the house.

Well today the Guinea fowl meet their match, some turkeys showed up and I am not talking about Asa B. The local flock of turkeys stopped in on the way through the Ranch and made a call at the bird feeder in the yard. They are at least twice the size of the guinea hens and pretty arrogant birds, thought not as bad geese. We have some photos that we will send. If I forget just refer back to the Asa B and Tom photos, that was two of them.

We are talking a lot more about old things nowadays. Old things? Perhaps, I should say simpler things. With the ranch and the animals an the gardens and the fields, etc. We were talking more about a sustainable lifestyle, where you know more about the food you eat, the milk and the water you drink, etc. Now, this is not organic per se, but more free range, where the animals have room to roam and forage, and there is very little chemicals or drugs used on the ground or to the animals. It is interesting, and I pray profitable down the road. Weekend past we were talking about how Grandma Price used fresh dandelions in the spring for salad greens. How we gather them early, there were no lawn chemicals then, and Grandma cleaned and chopped them and then wilted them in a hot vinegar bacon dressing that was really good. Does anyone else remember that? Does anyone have the recipe?

We have to haul water to the animals right now. It is cold here and the bedrock is so near the surface in most areas that right now I can not afford to blast down to put in water lines and hydrants that will not freeze. So the house water is collected into large tubs down at the basement door, we have an outside faucet, and taken to the animals on the front end loader of the tractor. We are carrying about 100 gallons a day of warm water to the animals, if we use cold water the valve freezes before we get the water to the barn and then we have to fight with that also. The temperature has not been above freezing for a couple of weeks here in the North Country.

The wind has also been pretty bad this year. I am looking forward to some of this global warming the boys down south are gabbing about. See the attached photos; the wind got under the roof of my old garage, lifting the north half of the roof up abit and sliding it about a foot off the beams. So now I have contacted the local Amish builder, if he can repair if for a reasonable sum, I will get him over here this spring, but if not, look for a new pole barn for the cars next winter. One with a solid roof. Asa and I went up on the side of the house this weekend past and disconnected the electrical lines from the old garage, just in case it falls over, we do not want to lose all the electricity at the Ranch.

Andy, do you do any roof repairs on old buildings?